WWIII started the day the soviet union fell apart and instead of the USA dialing back its own paranoid militarism it doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on it in a bid to become the evil imperial hegemon it used to accuse the USSR of wanting to become.
'Murica wants dominion over the entire planet and there's only one way to even possibly achieve that: violently.
So here we are. Resistance to 'Murica's hegemonic ambitions was never a question of "if"; it was always a question of "when". That time appears to be approaching rapidly and 'Murica itself is setting the pace by its own actions around the world. From weaponizing its currency and the captured global financial systems to conducting what passes for "diplomacy" in worthless and/or bad-faith agreements always in the shadow of 'Murica's globe-spanning military murder machine, we have challenged every nation on Earth to either bend the knee or prepare for war.
Unsurprisingly there are a number of unbent knees and there will be even more before this is finished.